The Tutbury Jinnie will always remain a sentimental realm of railway history in the area.

The line between Tutbury and Burton made its first journey on September 11, 1848 when the Burton to Tutbury line of the North Staffordshire Railway Company was officially opened.

While closure plans were rumoured as early as the mid-1930s, the line made its final journey on June 11, 1960.

The final journey may have seen more than 500 passengers crowd onto the train for prosperity reasons – but on most days of the year, the train served just 12 people.

It was this lack of support for the service which resulted in its downfall and closure.

Back into Burton came the Jinnie – pushed from behind by the locomotive. Crowds gathered to great her as she pulled up for the last time (Image: Burton Mail/ Mail Remembers)

While the famous song says "video killed the radio star", it was diesel buses, high costs and poor railway timetables which killed the Jinnie.

Sentiment alone was not enough to save the line and despite warnings of how closing the route would cause "considerable hardship", rail bosses had to justify keeping the line open which cost more than £7,300 a year to run.

At a meeting in November 1959, Mr George Dow, the British Transport Commission representative and division traffic manager at Birmingham said that British Railways were "under Government instruction" to pay their way and "sentiment cannot enter into it".

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Those were the days....

He said changes had been made in the public travelling habits and while there was no intention of closing the actual Tutbury Railway Station, the Tutbury to Burton service only catered for an average of 12 people per day.

This average grew during the summer months but that alone was not enough to warrant saving the line.

Mr Dow was questioned by Mr Bailey of Repton Rural District Council who suggested using a single-diesel rail carriage to help reduce running costs. This idea was rejected.

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Mr Bailey said: "The railways are to blame for driving people away from the trains. They cut and chop services to such an extent that they make them unattractive to the travelling public."

Mr Bailey was supported by Mr Twigg who was representing the Burton Trades Council.

Speaking at the meeting in 1959, Mr Twigg said: "I have been surprised to see that they have no real case for closing the line for it is obvious that they have not tried very hard in the past to keep it open."

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Writing a comment piece for the Burton Mail in 1959, Alf Moss who wrote under the pseudonym "Burtonian", said: "The arguments put forward by those in favour of retaining the service were strong but so were those broached by the transport commission which produced facts and figures that the average number of passengers on a week day was only 12.

"I would like to ask a question which can do no good but might provide somebody food for thought – why was there only 12 a day?

"My contention is that those outside the 12 who would like to use the train service but do not, are those who think the fare is too high and the trains do not run at convenient times.

The driver and fireman were inundated with requests from passengers for them to sign their tickets (Image: Burton Mail/ Mail Remembers)

"True, they connect with services between Derby and Crewe but many people who would like to ride the Tutbury Jinnie are not going to Crewe or intermediate stations – they merely want to travel between Tutbury and Burton, just as they can do on the bus.

"I do not claim to be an expert economist, but I feel that if the Burton to Tutbury fare was really slashed over a trial period, more passengers would be forthcoming and the loss could not be any greater than it is now."

A glance through archive cuttings on the Tutbury Jinnie suggests that this line was always under threat of closure and it was simply a case of "when" and not "if".

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In February 1934, the English Electric Company delivered a train to Burton which had been built in Rugby and was one of the first of its kind. This train used an electric motor powered by a diesel generator and could seat 53 passengers with a top speed of 60mph.

This diesel-electric train was an experiment to see how well it could replace the Tutbury Jinnie locomotive.

The Tutbury Jinnie pulls out of her bay at Burton Station on her last return trip from Burton to Tutbury (Image: Burton Mail/ Mail Remembers)

In its early heydays, the Tutbury Jinnie would stop at the intermediate stations of Horninglow, Stretton and Rolleston with the train operating a push-and-pull system.

The quaint locomotive would pull the train from Burton to Tutbury and then reverse back again with the driver manipulating controls in a rear compartment.

In 1850, the journey between Tutbury and Burton took 12 minutes – by 1957, with the loss of intermediate stations, the journey could be completed in less than two minutes.